


you do realise that monsters have hearts, don’t you?

by shae (5H4E)



Series: enthralled au [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M, Gen, Pining, Tom is a child of the 1960's, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 12:17:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7639849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5H4E/pseuds/shae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Glimpses into Tom and Esne’s relationship, taken from different points in time. 5 from Tom’s perspective, 1 from Esne’s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you do realise that monsters have hearts, don’t you?

** i. **

Tom confronts her in front of the TARDIS door before she can enter the ship after the Doctor. She fixes him with a hard stare, glancing down at him as if he’s under inspection, and Tom has to resist faltering in front of her. He’s learnt not to fear aliens on impulse, but old habits die hard for someone who grew up on _War Of The Worlds_ , and stories of alien invasion, and Esne’s never been all that warm or welcoming.

“What’s your _problem_ with me? What have I actually _done_ to you?”

 _Esne_ is the one who falters, and Tom takes that as a small victory. A slight, incredulous smile cracks through her steely resolve, like he’s made some tasteless joke. Tom’s not as smart as Esne, he can never forget that around her, but he’s not completely unobservant, and he knows that she’s more expressive around him than she is around the Doctor, around whom she never lets her guard down, even though it’s still clear that she feels little more than disdain for Tom.

To be fair, Tom is equally irreverent towards her.  Esne is, by turns, manipulative and untrustworthy, or cowardly and spiteful: either way, she seems dangerous to Tom, who has heard about what happened at the hospital, and knows that she’s served time in prison for her offenses. Terrorism isn’t a sympathetic crime, Tom thinks. It’s deadly and selfish and cruel, in ways that are inexcusable. Tom doesn’t actually know if Esne’s killed anyone, but he knows of the attempts. He’s witnessed the way she lies and steals and meddles like a con-artist, too, and is weary of her, even when the Doctor tries to extend his patience and empathy towards her.

That’s not to say Tom hasn’t _tried_ to do the same, because Esne is a mystery – a puzzle with missing pieces – and Tom _wants_ to understand what made her this way.

But she makes it so _difficult._

“Don’t pretend to be that ignorant,” she quips, and jerks away from him, against the door of the TARDIS. He never touched her yet she acts like he’s burned her just from standing too close. But she doesn’t run away, like Tom almost assumes she will. She stays; another victory. “I didn’t want you to come with us, but you did anyway. And _now_ the Doctor is distracted with playing at being the hero.”

Tom suspects she has more to say than that, but her lips are pressed together in a thin line and she’s frowning and _refusing_ , stubbornly, to share anything else with him.

(He remembers, though, what she’s referring to. It’d be impossible to forget. His first adventure was a uniquely memorable experience.

He’d been told to stay away from the field, but curiosity got the better of him.

Bored as he was, and curious about the little black devices that had scattered over Britain like a shower of obsidian cubes, as light as rainfall, Tom took the first opportunity he got. He wanted to see the field where they first appeared with his own eyes. Wind-and-rain beaten makeshift tents of metal framing and tarpaulin had already been constructed at the site, a fence circling the perimeter of the area with garish yellow police tape warning people to take caution. There was seemingly nothing dangerous about the cubes - that’s what had been reported, at least - but scientists had amassed at the site with lab equipment and tools, and the metal fence protected their research more than anything else.

He’d climbed over the fence that morning, just to be nosy. There wasn’t anything to fear from scientists in lab-coats and glasses-

“What are you doing here?”

But what he got was a tall, stern looking, girl with grey skin and black eyes.

Tom stared at her, half fascinated-half afraid. There was no doubt in his mind what she was. “People said it was aliens! I didn’t believe them, really. I thought it was some marketing campaign. But-“

“ _I’m_ not the alien you’re looking for,” she interrupted, a fraction of a smirk on her face.

Tom couldn’t help the smile that appeared on his face, an incredulous laugh escaping his lips before he had the chance to swallow it down. “Sorry,” he said – a hasty afterthought, he didn’t want to offend her – “I just… I never thought I’d meet a real life alien! I see all this stuff on TV about life on Mars, and that. But it’s all things like bacteria, and minute lifeforms-”

“Well, now you’ve met one. Now answer my question: what are you doing here?” She approached, expression stoic. “I know all the scientists here; you’re not one of them. Who are you?”

Tom raised his hand, an offer at a handshake. She stared at the appendage, confused, before looking back up at him, questioningly. “I’m Tom, er- I sort of snuck in? I guess? I wanted to see what was happening for myself. I’m… sorry?”

If he expected her to be angry or send him away, he was mistaken. She softened, tension relaxing in her posture as a soft, small, self-satisfied smile appeared on her face. “Alright, Tom. I’m Esne, and if you could get in, you can get me out. Deal?”

*****

In the shadow of the Tower of London, the sun steadily rising in the sky, the Doctor clapped his hand on Tom’s back, between his shoulder blades, with a guffaw of a laugh.

“Ah, Tom! _Well done!_ ” He cried, as they sauntered towards the waiting TARDIS, which Esne had darted towards ahead of them; the TARDIS that would dematerialise with them and leave Tom alone again, just as bored and stagnant as ever.

“Doctor?”

“Yes, my boy?” And the Doctor halted, and turned to face him, hand moving from Tom’s back to his shoulder with a playful pat.

“Could… could I come with you? Please? I want to come along.”

The Doctor smiled a wistful smile that seemed to age him by several years. “ _Well,_ Thomas! That all depends, I think, on Esne.”

Esne, ahead of them, and standing by the TARDIS door vigilantly, impatiently waiting, with furrowed brows, turned to face them, listening to their conversation silently. Tom glanced at her at the same time as the Doctor did, both hopeful and weary, respectfully.

“What do you say, Esne? Can Tom join us? _I_ don’t see why not!”

Esne’s eyes flickered from one to the other, mulling things over. Tom wished he could read her. Her Lips parted, “no.”

That had not stopped Tom, of course. He’d waited for Kate Stewart to approach them for a word by the TARDIS, and seized his chance. The Doctor had been stunned yet amused when he found out, but Esne had been silently furious, and that fury had never left her eyes.)

“I-”

Esne shifts on her feet, snapping Tom out of his thoughts. She moves to push the door, enter the TARDIS, to be alone. “ _You_.” She hisses, scornfully. And with that, she quickly turns and leaves him floundering outside the TARDIS. He can’t wait too long, the Doctor will come looking for him, but he takes a few seconds to gulp down air and mull things over.

Esne is difficult and untrustworthy and dangerous, but apparently _he’s_ the one to blame?

** ii. **

“I didn’t know _this_ was going to happen,” she’s saying, approaching them resolutely yet keeping her distance: never getting too close to the Doctor, and his lopsided grin, and his clenched fists.

(Tom doesn’t think the Doctor would ever hit her – can’t imagine it, hard as he tries, but he can understand the thrallgirl’s trepidation: this is, after all, _her_ fault.)

She’s a hazy memory actualised in the sterile lighting of the TARDIS: he didn’t think he’d see her again after she left, didn’t think she’d ever _choose_ to come back.

“You expect me to _believe_ that, do you?” The Doctor scoffs from beside Tom, “that _you_ didn’t know the Rani would do something like this? That you ‘didn’t know any better’?”

His voice is clipped; soft; sinister - a lilting almost-laugh. Tom’s never seen the Time Lord this angry, before. He’s trembling with barely contained fury, dancing on the precipice of pure rage, and for the first time, Tom understands what made Esne so afraid when she travelled with them. What stings more is Esne’s betrayal, not the imminent threat of the Rani’s experiments.

“Oh, _I knew_ ,” a snarl of a smile, a spiteful hiss. Esne’s at the centre of the TARDIS’ interior now, the console separating her and the Time Lord. Last time she’d been at the console, she’d deliberately crashed the ship and made a run for it, and seeing her again, back aboard with them, makes all the time in-between feel fleeting and evanescent. Esne, with her dark eyes and grand height and her stoic, calm, imposing nature, has that effect. She’s as tall and daunting as he remembers, dressed all in white as she is. Here, however, she’s agitated, uneasy-

“But I wanted _out_ , and I took the first chance I could get. I never wanted _this_ , Doctor. I didn’t know it would go this far, this time. I came back here to _stop her_. I took her research and went looking for you for help-”

And the Doctor is launching himself at her in fury, and his voice is a bark, an explosion of anger as the Time Lord momentarily slips over the edge of reason, and Esne has the sense to back away sharply, and the Doctor is almost upon her with clenched fists at the ready, and-

“Doctor! Doctor, stop this!” It’s pure instinct that hurtles Tom in front of Esne, arms raised and outstretched either side to cover her. His voice (and, perhaps, the vision of Tom rushing from his side to protect Esne) seems to trigger something in the Doctor, whose anger subsides rapidly.

“Tom…”

“Leave her alone, Doctor. She came to help, and _we need her_.” And though Tom is certain the Doctor will not try to hurt Esne, outside of screaming harsh words at her, he cannot find it in himself to leave her side now. Difficult and untrustworthy and dangerous though Esne may be, she was on their side this time, and perhaps his loyalty was too easily won, but Tom could not bring himself to turn on her now that she had fought to get back here to stop the Rani. And the Doctor’s verbally lashing out had done nothing more than set such instincts in Tom’s resolve.

 

** iii. **

Tom’s room is warm, lit in a soft, pastel pink-gold glow with a steady humming as the ship flew across time and space. It’s rhythmic, pulsating, a gentle mechanic whir, the heartbeat of the TARDIS. Lying on his back, resting against his pillows with his blankets thrown over him, Tom is on the verge of drowsiness when the door opens.

Esne’s head pokes into the room first, checking to see if he’s awake, and when her eyes meet his, the rest of her body follows suit.

She’s still wearing the same clothes from their latest outing, tattered faded black jeans and a vest underneath a billowy red blouse, buttoned all the way up to the top, even though it’s been several hours since they got back. The same long, thin, black wire is still hanging from around her neck, tongue fitted into its own socket neatly like a strange electronic necklace.

She’s got a tray of two steaming mugs in her hands, a domestic sight that Tom isn’t used to seeing in connection with the tall thrallgirl.

“How are you feeling?” She asks, delicately, like she’s not quite sure what to do. _She’s nervous_ , he realises, a fraction of a second too late. _Embarrassed._ Normally they just awkwardly avoided each other, Tom out of mistrust, and Esne out of spite, though she’d softened slightly towards him since her return from the Rani’s ship, albeit she still kept her distance. Perhaps she thought Tom still regarded her with the same mistrust he always had – in truth, Tom hasn’t really taken the time to consciously re-evaluate his opinion of his travelling companion.

He had simply started to trust her a little bit more after she came back, without really realising it until now.

He shrugs with one shoulder, exhaling an overdramatic sigh through his nostrils. “As good as one might expect to feel after receiving such a mortal injury!” He quips, as Esne uses her foot to nudge the door shut behind her, and approaches the bed.

She glances down at her feet, lips curling upwards in a way that softens her entire demeanour noticeably.

“You _sprained your elbow_.” She says, as she sets the tray down on the desk. “I… brought you something?” There’s an upwards inflection at the end of the sentence, posing her statement as a question. He doesn’t say anything, just lets her get comfortable as she reaches to sit at the wheeled chair, rolling it towards him.

(He doesn’t remember the accident, he only knows he fell, that he’d tried to grab at something and landed awkwardly, because the Doctor told him so, but he _does_ remember her, gently holding his arm, kneeling by his side at the ground.

In his head, she doesn’t speak, but then memories are funny like that, and have a habit of losing details, so maybe she did and he just can’t remember. He remembers pain in his arm, and laughing – _his_ laughing – and the shock of the red of Esne’s shirt looming over him, and her hands on his at one point.

He doesn’t really know when Esne stopped being associated with negative thoughts and suspicion in his mind, but he thinks Esne has more than proven herself by now.)

“It’s hot chocolate? I’m… quite fond of it. We didn’t have chocolate on my planet,” Tom never knew that about her before. He doesn’t know a lot of things about Esne. Her sharing this with him feels like she’s sharing something infinitely precious to her, and there’s something charming about that. That hot chocolate can be that special.

“Thanks,” and he means that. It’s not much, but if Esne’s trying to build up trust between them, Tom can only be grateful.

“It’s a peace offering. I know you don’t like me that much, and I know I’ve never been welcoming to you in return. For my part, I am sorry about that. It wasn’t fair of me to do that, it wasn’t _your fault_.” Esne _looks_ at Tom as she apologises, rather than look away in embarrassment, like Tom wants to do, and there is courage in that. Esne’s not a coward, he thinks belatedly. Not like he once thought.

After all, _Tom_ never tried to re-evaluate his position or relationship with Esne: Tom never sought her out to make amends.

“Ever since I met the Doctor, I’ve never had a choice in anything. All my decisions have been made for me. When you asked me if you could travel with us, I thought that was my chance to actually have some control over my own situation for once. You couldn’t have known that, though. The whole point of me staying here was to find somewhere to go, to make a life for myself, and I was afraid that if you came along it would distract the Doctor from that. ”

Tom mulls over this new information. He already knew the gist of Esne’s predicament; the Doctor had told him her secrets after he’d complained, not for the first time, about how undeserving Esne was of travelling with them. That her people were all gone, that she was alone and looking for somewhere to start a new life. He had failed to understand how _he_ had anything to do with that. Now, Tom starts to understand. He thinks about how lonely Esne must feel.

He looks at his arm, swollen and bruised in its splint and cast.

“On Earth, we have a tradition: if someone gets hurt, his friends sign his cast. D’you mind?”

Esne’s mouth is open, like she is about to say something, but confusion, and then dawning realisation, crosses her features and she pauses. He smiles at her. She smiles back, hesitantly, and turns in the chair to look for a pen. She writes a large messy ‘ESNE’ in green ink, childlike in its style, like she wasn’t used to writing these letters.

 

** iv. **

The Doctor knows. Of course the Doctor knows. It would be madness to assume that the Doctor – odd, scatter-brained, eccentric though he may be – would not know.

Because Tom is observant and good with people and he knows that nobody loves Esne more than the Doctor. Their relationship is strained and difficult, both awkward and bitter around each other, but the Doctor loves her. When he looks at her, there is something familial in his eye. Tom wonders if the Doctor sees a daughter in her – or his granddaughter, Susan.

Sometimes Tom wonders if the Doctor sees _himself_ in Esne.

Nobody is more protective of Esne than the Doctor is, frustrating though their relationship may be. So, of course, the Doctor would know.

And that makes this conversation the interplanetary space-time equivalent of ‘The Talk’ in many aspects.

“Have you… well, said anything to her, I suppose. I mean about your feelings. I know you’ve said a lot of things to Esne but I mean about this one particular… er, subject?”

Tom shakes his head, mutely. “She’s not said anything to you, has she?” Esne’s smart, she’s very good at working things out and whilst she’s not especially a people-person, she can work them out like she can a puzzle if she so wills it. Tom’s fairly certain he’s not been subtle, and he wouldn’t be surprised if Esne worked it all out.

(He didn’t mean for it to happen. She’d talked to him about her planet, about her experiences travelling with the Doctor, about why she’d been so angry at his stowing away, and as he came to understand her, he found a growing respect for her, that grew into a curiosity, then into a crush, like he was some lovesick child.

And it wasn’t like a regular crush, because Esne wasn’t a regular girl. She was an alien, and looked the part. But she was cute when she got confused over Earth colloquialisms and customs, and he admired the way she weathered every storm that came her way.

She was good with technology and he liked watching her build things. She frowned when she read (and that was cute, too). She brought him hot chocolate every day when he sprained his elbow, and wrote her name on his cast because she had been lonely all this time and wanted a friend, and signing casts was what friends do. She’d told him “I know you” when he didn’t know himself, when travelling became too much, and “you’re okay” when he thought he’d lost them. She wasn’t afraid to tell the Doctor to shut up – to tell _him_ to shut up – and he believed in Esne more than he believed in himself or the Doctor. She was the bravest person he knew, and he never gave her credit for that before.

She could pilot the TARDIS single-handedly just because she taught herself how to and that alone was enough to make him want her.)

The Doctor laughs. “No, no she hasn’t said anything to me,”

Tom nods, mutely. She didn’t need to for the Doctor to work it out. His relationship with Esne has changed drastically enough for anyone to guess that at least one of them has to have fallen for the other. And Tom has always been the weaker one.

They hadn’t instantaneously become best friends after she’d visited him in his room. But he’d spent a lot of time in there with his arm propped up on pillows, being bored, and she’d come to visit him every day.

The Doctor did too, but that was in line with that Tom expected of the Time Lord. Esne showing him courtesy and warmth was new and exciting. She’d decided not to be cold towards him anymore, and he had become attached instantaneously.

It started as a growing respect for her, the alien who had lost everything and was still trying to build a life for herself regardless, and become a sort of adoration – she was like some sort of hero, in his eyes, and even when his arm had healed and he could start going on adventures with them again, he still ended up being subconsciously aware of Esne’s presence at all times. He looked out for her, and quite pathetically followed after her like a pet, and there was, and still is, no subtlety at all to his behaviour.

Esne, for her part, ignores this - which does not mean she is ignorant of it, but at least it saves Tom the embarrassment of having to actually talk about it with her. He doesn’t really think Esne, with her bluntness and stoicism, would take to the idea of Tom jumping from giving her the cold shoulder out of disdainful mistrust, to running after her imagining what it might be like to _touch_ her.

Because though Tom wants nothing more than to be able to spend every possible moment with her, he’s not stupid and he knows what she wants so much more than to just be with him, that he is so far off her radar, off her list of priorities, that there is _no chance whatsoever_ for him.

And that’s okay. Esne’s needs are _far_ greater than his own. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t sting a little bit though.

He exhales a loud self-pitying sigh. “I’m sorry,” he says, wondering if the Doctor is angry with him but too afraid to actually look at him and find out.

“What for? For getting a little crush? There’s no harm in that, is there? No. Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.” The Doctor has marched around to Tom’s side of the console, and leans against it. “I am concerned, however,” he adds, this time in a low voice, as if trying to placate Tom, and also remain unheard at the same time.

Tom folds his arms across his chest, back to the console, and looks up at the Doctor by his side. “I’m not going to _do_ anything,”

“Uh, well,” the Doctor falters. “ _Good_.” He dithers, for a moment, fidgeting with the console as if trying to avoid the conversation, get his thoughts back on track. Tom watches him, for a moment, confused. Then the Doctor places a hand on Tom’s arm, and pats awkwardly. “I just mean to say – that is – that… that however much you might, er, care about her, it… would be _inadvisable_ … to, to say the least, if – if you were-”

“Stop before you hurt yourself!” Tom can’t stop himself from chuckling. This is awkward and unhappy but the Doctor is floundering and embarrassed too and that’s a comfort to Tom. “I know nothing can happen, and really, that’s the way it should be. She has more important things to worry about than me, and I get that. I really do. And she’s a thrall and I’m a human so it’d never work anyway.  I just… I _really_ like her, and I’ll get over it! I will! Just give me a little time, okay? I’ll be fine.”

 

** v. **

Tom’s changed during his time on the TARDIS, of that much he is certain. He thinks it’s for the better, but knows it’ll be a shock to the system going back to his old life. He knows what he wants now, feels ready to face the linear, adult world of 21st century planet Earth – the life he found so boring and undesirable and stagnant before. 

He’s grown up.

(Sat on an embroidered chaise lounge, in Buckingham Palace in 1915, Esne asked him about _why_ he was there.

Cloth of gold was woven into the rich reds and blues and greens so that as Tom fiddled with the thread, it glittered under his fingers. His father and mother weren’t even born yet; somewhere, his grandmother was tending to wounded soldiers in France, and his grandfather – Tom’s namesake – was working in the family pub in Norwich, living in dread waiting for his next birthday and his conscription. Neither of them would ever meet Tom. Yet they’re all in 1915, divided by the Channel and the war and the laws of time and space.

He’d never thought about what leaving with the Doctor would mean for the world he left behind, even though he had every intention of coming back, one day.

“I’d wanted some time in-between where I was and where I was going. I wanted more time, and where better to get it than a time machine?”

Did his mother know where he was? Did his father know what he was doing? Had time moved on from the year of the slow invasion for them? Were they aware he was gone, or were they frozen in time, suspended and unknowing?

Esne had left nothing behind, but Tom had left _everything_. He couldn’t believe his own selfishness.)

He’d boarded the TARDIS an eager, idealistic little kid wanting adventure and excitement – something different. He’d wanted to run away from the responsibility of university and then a career, and then families and relationships and maybe children, and _adulthood_.

He would leave the TARDIS maybe not a _man_ , but something close enough.

“Doctor?” He turns, doubting, for a moment, whether or not he can do this – he knows he should, and he knows that, deep down, he wants to – but making the decision to give this up for normalcy feels like something he almost isn’t willing to face. It’s the first of many difficult decisions and responsibilities, and that’s what scares Tom most.

The Doctor is behind him in an instant, his hands on Tom’s shoulders, squeezing them comfortingly with his thumbs rubbing small circles into Tom’s back.

“Doctor, I’m afraid,”

“Ah! Well! Yes. I’d be surprised if you weren’t. But fear is natural, Tom – it… it makes you cautious, makes you take risks, _why_ it makes you… makes you very _human_. Being brave isn’t the absence of fear, Thomas, it’s the courage to do things, to _be_ things, _in spite_ of fear. And there are a whole lot of things waiting for you outside of the TARDIS. 15 Porterfield Road is the biggest, most exciting place that’s ever existed, right now!” The Doctor moves to stand at Tom’s side, arm around him and knowing smile on his face, and he whispers: “And fear is the best part!” And then, with an intake of breath, the Doctor’s arm is gone and the Doctor is stepping back with a knowing smile on his face, like he’s proud of Tom and believes in him.

Esne’s standing just behind the Time Lord, head cocked to one side slightly, and Tom wonders if she feels betrayed in some way. He wonders if he should ask her to come with him.

(He thinks if he asked her to stay, to come with him, she would.

He thinks that that wouldn’t be fair, that Esne deserves the pride and agency and freedom of her own choice.)

She doesn’t wait for Tom to speak, she simply marches forward resolutely, and she’s in front of him looking down at him expectantly, and she’s sad – and he’s sad – but this feels right, all of a sudden. He has all sorts of things to do.

“Don’t get into too much trouble,” she says. That’s not an order Tom will obey, and they both know it.

“I should say the same to you!”

Silence. Esne’s _looking_ at him, waiting. She’s studying his face like she wants to memorise it.

“Esne, I’m-”

“ _Don’t_ apologise.” She sounds stern, exasperated, but she’s smiling as she says it. Esne’s proud to the end, but she softens when shown affection, at least around him. Someone has to look out for her. “You _should_ go,”

“I didn’t mean to abandon you, and it’s important to me that you know that.”

Another amused smile. There’s no denying Esne is sad, that she is hurt, but it’s a familiar thing and she’s letting him go. That she is happy for him, even if she is sad, herself. “I do know that. Go, I _want_ you to go.”

“Just… do one thing for me, okay? Don’t be alone - promise me.”

Esne doesn’t say the words, but she nods. She doesn’t cry – but he does. Fat tears falling from his eyes before he has any chance to wipe them away. Esne catches them, brushing them from his jaw with her thumb gently, deftly, as if she never touched him at all. Embarrassed, he has to force himself to look at her as he holds out his hands for a final parting handshake. He wants to hold her – but it’s too late for all that, and Esne’s never been one for all that anyway, so what would be the point?

(Esne held his hand, if only for a second to check his arm wasn’t broken, when he fell from the bridge and she’d said “are you okay?” with a concern in her voice that he’d never heard from her before that moment. He remembers it now, an unrelated memory of the first time she touched him.

“Are you okay?” had been all he’d said when he found her after being split from her on one of their travels, reaching out to touch her arm as if she was fragile, or unreal, or both.)

She takes his hand in hers, gives it the awkward, uncertain, stiff shake one would expect from an alien with no familiarity with Earth etiquette and customs. But then she steps closer and wraps her arms around him.

It is not the warm, close embrace Tom desired, but he knew in his heart he’d never get that from Esne. As it is, this is rare for her, and she’s _trying_ , and he’s grateful and courteous and doesn’t try to push her further. It ends too quickly, and she’s awkward about it, going about it methodically, but he understands. This is goodbye, and Esne is alone again.

She steps away, back to where the Doctor has retreated to, just outside the doors of the TARDIS, giving Tom space he doesn’t need.

“Look after her, won’t you? Keep her safe, for me. Or I’ll find you, Doctor. I mean it.” Esne is biting her lip, blushing, and the Doctor is abashed, and with that, Tom takes his leave, and turns, heading to his house, feeling trepidation settling in, alongside excitement for the life he is about to lead. He has all sorts of things to do.

 

** vi. **

Sitting across from the Doctor, Esne sighs and shoves the sonic screwdriver she'd taken from his body during his regeneration into her pocket.

This man, both foreign and familiar, had let her keep it, and pulled the tweed jacket from his shoulders and placed it on the white leather seat beside her - even after she jerked away from his reach - as if he was bestowing the last vestige of his former self upon her, passing it on should she choose to take it. He wasn't the same man anymore and he didn't need it.

She crosses her arms in front of herself. Sat on the floor, leaning against the wall behind her, trying to make herself smaller, she tugs Tom’s old hoodie closer around her absentmindedly. He’d left it for her, along with two others, after he left the TARDIS. He’d not said anything to her at the time, but she’d found them folded neatly, waiting for her on her bed in her room in the ship when she’d retreated to her room after saying goodbye. She’d wrapped herself up in the one at the top of the pile, and devoted her time to working on that TARDIS’ machinery for several hours, ignoring the Doctor when he told her to get some sleep. When she finally went to bed, she’d cried, and then curled up and fallen asleep, still in Tom’s hoodie.

The bunker has no heating system in place, and it’s getting cold rapidly. Tom’s hoodie is keeping her warm. Even now, after he’d left, after the Doctor he knew had gone, Tom is still looking after her.

She spares a glance at the Gallifreyan across from her. He’s watching her: he always looks at her with such fascination, this version. She doesn't know what he wants, or how to give it to him.

"Why do you look at me like that?" She settles for, bluntly. She isn't willing to have a repeat of her introduction to the previous Doctor: they aren't going to awkwardly avoid each other. She wants to know who he is, what he wants, and if she is safe with him. She had just started to trust the man he was before, but now he's changed, and everything is uncertain again. 

"Esne," he breathes, in his soft, unfamiliar voice, " _I know_."

Locked in the bunker with the Doctor – this new version of him after his regeneration that Esne does not know – Esne watches him cautiously. She doesn’t hate the Doctor – she’d learnt to trust him, to like him, long ago. But the Doctor she knew is now gone and it’s like she has to start all over again. Once again, Esne is by herself. She’d lost her home, her people, her friends, and now her Doctor.

(She had carried him through the lab and corridors to the TARDIS after they had taken him. Fumbling forward with exhaustion, and kicking open the TARDIS doors, Esne had heaved herself into the ship, hauling the Doctor in with her, his wrist clasped in her hand, his arm around her shoulders, pulling his weight onto her left side as she gripped his waist.

She managed three steps onto the ship's lower level, before she felt her muscles giving way and the Doctor slipping down, and, gasping heavily for breath, she felt herself being dragged down as she lowered him to the ground as best she could.

Esne left him sprawled on his back, comatose, as she first slammed the TARDIS doors shut behind them, locking them, and then rushed up the steps, panting, and threw herself at the console, switching the gears to close the doors and lock them securely.  She wanted to sit, to catch her breath, just for a moment, but she couldn't: they were on the run, they'd just escaped and were stuck on a dangerous spacecraft, and the Doctor needed her in his critical condition.

She sucked in a deep breathe, stood up straight, and set the TARDIS in flight. 

Returning to the Doctor’s side, she hovered over his limp form. He almost looked like he was just sleeping, but Esne knew he would never wake. She’d seen what the Rani’s experiments could do.

"Why won't you regenerate?" Esne breathed aloud, staring at the Doctor’s body. She knelt over him, the rhythmic whirring pulse of the TARDIS warming the metal floor beneath them. He was so still, so quiet. There wasn't anything she could do. She was not a medic and she didn't understand Gallifreyan anatomy enough to try to counteract the trauma afflicted on the Doctor's brain.

He was as good as dead, she thought, grimly.

He wasn't going to wake up. She'd begged him to, frantically, reaching for pulse points with tears in her eyes when she found him still alive. He was not dead, but he may as well be. She might have carried home a corpse, for all her efforts had esteemed her.)

“Did it hurt?”

“No,” his voice is gentle. “And I understand why you did it.”

Esne stares at him in bitter disbelief. It can’t be that easy. She refuses to accept that it’s that easy, that the Doctor has no ulterior motive this time.  She’s defensive, again, suspicious of this new Doctor who she doesn’t know, and yet, at the same time, knows so well; this new Doctor who _she_ brought into being. What does that make them, now?

“You can trust me, Esne - have courage,”

Esne is reminded of when she met the Doctor, after she tried to kill him and then had him locked away in a cell under the ground.

(The cell was only small, barely wider than an arm's length on each side, and dark, with rusted bars.

"You're very brave." He had said, gazing at her, curious to see how she'd react. She had surprised him, so far. "According to the highest skald, I'm supposed to be the greatest evil this planet – this _universe_ \- has ever faced, and yet… here you are, come to visit me regardless."

"It is not that I am _brave_ , just that I am not stupid. But thank you, anyway." She stared at him, taking in every detail about his face, and body. He was not what she had imagined, or had expected. She would be foolish to not fear him, but likewise, he was impeded by being behind bars and she now held the position of power here. More importantly, she did not doubt what she herself was capable of. "I am not supposed to be here, however I have questions, and I won't get answers from anyone other than you.”)

Esne clutches the fabric of Tom’s hoodie. In the pocket, she can feel the screwdriver. “What good is _courage_ going to do when we’re trapped in a fallout shelter? Logic and ingenuity would be more effective, here.”

This Doctor smirked, amused. For a moment she thinks she understands. That look on his eyes is a lot of things: regret, for one thing, but also _pride_. He believes in her, she realises. He is proud of her, doing what she did. “Brave heart, Esne.”

She raises her eyebrows at that, then looks away, biting back the smile that wants to appear. She was never the brave one. “I miss Tom,” she says aloud, and though the Doctor says nothing in response to that, she knows he misses him too.

**Author's Note:**

> The flashback in I is based on ‘The Power Of Three’; in Enthralled canon “The Year Of The Slow Invasion” is slightly different: the cubes are tiny scanners observing if Earth is habitable for a full-scale invasion. It studies the inhabitants for its creators to learn to imitate them. It’s no longer based on Amy and Rory. The Doctor and Amy’s storyline in the episode is in my version given to The Doctor and Tom, whilst Esne has Brian’s role with Rory – she’s made to stay with on-site scientists to observe and moniter the cubes.


End file.
